EXILES.
Edwina stood and took a drag on the cigarette; Elsa sat in a chair with her feet propped up on the radiator. They could still hear the piano playing in the hall as the other dancers carried on with the new dance routine. Edwina held onto the smoke, let it flow into her, before slowly letting it out in a long expression of air and smoke. Her legs ached; her back felt stiff. Mr Philips was a hard taskmaster. He was a perfectionist. He wanted the dance routine to be spot on, no room for slackers or those who couldn’t keep up. Elsa gazed out of the window at the grey sky. She was beginning to hate dancing; she felt sluggish, like she’d been emptied out of all energy and feelings. She could smell Edwina’s cigarette; the smoke entered her lungs and head. She fancied a cigarette herself, but she was trying to give it up. The piano in the hall stopped playing. Mr Philips was shouting. Edwina looked at Elsa and raised her eyebrows. They exchanged smiles. She knew what Elsa was thinking. The night before they’d been in bed together and made all this dancing nonsense, seem like nothing. She could still smell Elsa’s scent on her as she raised her arm. She closed her eyes. The piano began playing again with Mr Philips voice shouting alongside it. Elsa looked out of the window once more. Edwina wanted to recall all that she could of the night before. Each moment that had imprinted itself on her mind. The undressing. Yes, that had been like the unwrapping of parcels at Christmas. Yet it had been done slowly, not hurriedly, not in the heat of the moment, but as if the undressing itself was an important part of the process. She had undressed Elsa first, taking each item of clothing from her and laying it over a chair. Then Elsa had undressed her, her thin fingers nervously removing each piece of clothing and putting it over the same chair. Elsa stood there when she had finished and stared. The piano in the hall stopped again and Mr. Philips bellowed out. Edwina opened her eyes. The image faded. Elsa was looking out of the window. Edwina looked at Elsa’s legs propped on the radiator. She had kissed those legs from top to toes. At one time, those legs had been over her shoulders as she moved in to kiss Elsa’s stomach and down to her love dish. That word made her smile. She sensed the warmth, the smell, the juices. The piano began playing again and the dancing of feet in the hall. They’d be missed soon; old man Philips would come looking for them, his jaundice eyes moving over the both like slow slugs. Elsa caught sight of a spider in its web in the corner of the window. A fly buzzed in the web. She wanted to have Edwina in her bed again. She needed that sensation inside her a thousand times more before she died. That entering, those kisses, that tongue greedily slicking and sucking lips. Night had been like some promised paradise. Sensation following sensation. Kissing and kissing. When she had spread her thighs, it felt like the universe had been born again. The fly buzzed harder. The spider slowly descended the web. In for the kill. Edwina leaned over and kissed Elsa’s neck. The kiss stuck. The door opened and Mr Philips poked his nose and eyes in and said what the fuck.
